When Art Becomes Witness: The Canadian Library Memorial

There are 8,000 books wrapped in Indigenous fabric scattered across Canada right now. Each bears a name in gold on its spine, lives cut short, stories unfinished, families forever altered. This is The Canadian Library: not your typical collection of dusty volumes, but a living memorial refusing to let Canada look away from its most devastating truths.

The numbers are staggering. Indigenous women comprise 16% of all female homicide victims and 11% of missing women, yet Indigenous people represent only 4.3% of Canada’s population. These women, girls, and Two Spirit people are more than statistics. TCL ensures they are remembered as daughters, mothers, sisters, and friends, whole human beings whose absence leaves gaping wounds.

When Grief Becomes Art

TCL is a nationwide art installation memorial for MMIWG and children, created to spark conversation and deepen awareness about Canada’s true history. Toronto-based activist Shanta Sundarason founded the project after moving to Canada and learning the brutal truths many citizens have long ignored. “At the end of the day, this is Canada's story,” she says. “Canadians need to take ownership.”

Inspired by British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare’s The British Library, TCL wraps books in Indigenous-designed fabrics and embosses each spine with a name. It builds on the legacy of Métis artist Jaime Black’s REDress Project, which hangs empty red dresses to honor the missing and murdered. Where red dresses mark absence, TCL fills those voids, with names, fabric, memory.

The Power of Stopping in Your Tracks

TCL’s strength lies in its arresting presence. “You can't walk past one of these shelves without stopping,” says Sundarason. Each ‘micro gallery’, in businesses, schools, and libraries, uses IKEA Billy bookcases and books wrapped in Indigenous-sourced fabrics. When someone pauses, they can scan a QR code that leads to TCL’s site, where they’ll read family-written stories behind each name. “She is not just a number or a name,” says Dr. Linda Manyguns of Mount Royal University. “Her family tells you her story.”

Building Something Bigger

The project has found unexpected allies in mainstream spaces. IKEA became the first major retail partner, installing displays in all their Canadian stores. "It intends to educate, create awareness, advocate and start important conversations to help towards healing and true reconciliation," the retailer says. When a Swedish furniture giant is willing to use its retail space to confront Canadian colonial violence, something is shifting in the national conversation.

Some of the books remain nameless, representing those who may never be found, whose stories may never be told. Others carry names like Debbie Ann Sloss-Clarke, whose sister Mary Lou Smoke has been waiting more than two decades for justice. "The missing and murdered Indigenous women are sisters, mothers, aunties, grandmothers and the best friends of many," said Smoke. "It's important to always remember them, their lives were taken away before they had a chance to share their special gifts in this beautiful life."

TCL's ultimate vision is to bring all 8,000 books together in one massive permanent installation in a major museum or gallery, creating a national memorial that will serve as both education and remembrance for years to come.

 We're living in a moment when Canada is finally being forced to reckon with its colonial past. The discoveries of unmarked graves at former residential school sites have shattered any remaining illusions about this country's "nice guy" reputation. "I think that the whole of Canada was traumatized with the discovery of children's bodies and I think that was a waking-up point. People want the truth," says manyguns.

The Canadian Library doesn't offer easy answers or comfortable solutions. Instead, it offers something more valuable: witness. In a culture that prefers to move on quickly from uncomfortable truths, these books insist on staying put. They demand that we see, that we remember, that we sit with the weight of what we've allowed to happen.

"Reconciliation will only happen when the majority of Canadians are truly educated. It's not going to be a political thing. It will be through conversations and education and that's what we are hoping to create," Sundarason says.

Art has always been about making the invisible visible, giving form to feelings that resist easy categorization. The Canadian Library does that in the most necessary way, by refusing to let murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls disappear twice. Once in life, and again in memory.

Because every name on every spine represents someone who deserved to live, to love, to contribute their gifts to the world. The least we can do is remember their names.

How You Can Be Part of This

The Canadian Library relies on community involvement to grow its impact. You can build a micro gallery in your business, organization, or local space, all you need is an IKEA Billy bookcase and some donated hardcover books. TCL provides the Indigenous fabrics and coordinates the names. You can also volunteer to help wrap books, sew fabric covers, or spread awareness on social media. Financial donations support local organizations creating their own micro galleries, and you can purchase fabrics from Indigenous-owned businesses or TCL bookmarks and scrunchies. Visit www.thecanadianlibrary.ca to learn how to get involved, because reconciliation isn't a spectator sport, and every Canadian has a role to play in ensuring these stories are never forgotten.